A Postcard From Odin

Somewhere In Angle Land

Dear Heather,

  Thank you, child, for the postcard.  I don’t get many these days.  It’s all down to the breakdown of good pagan morals, if you ask Me.  All the sacred groves are paved over with shopping malls now.  It’s been years since I’ve seen a good blót.  For that matter, do you know when I last had a sacrifice worthy of the name?  1943.  Smaland, Sweden.  Ingvar Kamprad sacrificed a reindeer and a homeless man named Soren.  Since then?  Not a biscuit.

  When I got your postcard asking Me to smite Dr. William Lane Craig I thought, “Ho,ho!  Odin Me boy, We are back in business!”  This should make up for that colossal cock-up when I showed up too late for My time slot to smite that smart-arse, Martin.  You can bet My ex assistant, Mandy, is paying much more careful attention to My schedule after a 6-month posting to Hel.

  Anyway, enough prattling.  Do you want this Craig chap smited for saying that it’s a good thing to kill children because they’ll go to Heaven or do you want him smited for tempting Me?  Either is good for Me, you understand.  I just want to make sure the right forms are filled out.  Phrew!  The paperwork these days!  Ragnarok can’t come soon enough, if you ask Me.

  Of course, that’s what this fellow is working toward, isn’t it?  Being one of Gawd’s brand-loyalists, he calls it “Armageddon” or “Rapture” or some such, but it’s the same thing.  Speaking of, since he’s one of Gawd’s, that means even more paperwork and red tape.  An interfaith smiting can be a real pain in the fundament.  You’ve got to submit everything in triplicate and it usually goes before the board of the Deity Club.  And, sister, they ain’t exactly lightning-quick.  My boy, Thor, waited years to get the all-clear to smite King Edmund.  He finally got so fed up that He sent a couple of His bully-boys round to make a pincushion of him.  Looked like a porcupine with feathers when they were through.  Turned out to be much simpler, in the end, and it still went down as a smiting in Thor’s stats.

  Come to think of it, you might want to explore that avenue.  I’m not saying you don’t have good, pagan values on your side.  You do.  And I’m not saying that I can’t do it.  Hel, I’m Odin, after all; the wisdom, war, battle, death, victory, hunting and poetry deity.  Well… mostly poetry, these days, but I do try to keep My hand in by smiting cats and geese and such.  Off the books, you understand?

  Yeah, the more I think about this, I see the problem as twofold.  First – mycket paperwork.  Second – I don’t really have the depth-of-bench I used to in the bully boy department.  In fact, you’re pretty much it.  So let Me throw a little of My divine wisdom at you.  As My only extant brand-loyalist, I hereby name you “Odin’s Chief Enforcer”.  This means that when I’m wroth with someone, (in this case, Dr. William Lane Craig), your job will be to thrash them soundly.  Afterwards, I count it as a righteous smiting on My record, thus gaining stature at the Deity Club.  As you seem to have done a pretty thorough job on the guy already, I think we can call this one a win.

  So, you asked for Me to smite someone.  They are officially smited per Deity Club Handbook section IV, Paragraph xi.  You’re welcome.  That will be two oxen, sacrificed on the next appropriate holy day at your nearest sacred grove, (which is now a Tesco).

The Mighty Odin Has Spoken!

~O